Lock solo as a beginner on a leisure craft

[Momac]

On 2017-5-27 at 00:00, Calranthe said:

Hopefully starting the buying process next week on a 20ft buckingham as per another thread and I will be moving it from sawley to Aston marina via the trent & mersey something like a 3-4 day journey on my own talk about trial by fire, so this is my post asking for advice and ideas. 

All of the solo lock video's I have seen are from the perspective of a narrow boat, as some one pointed out to me try not to get into a lock with a narrow boat you are in a plastic boat which will bend and squish especially if up against a steel narrow boat.

So I probably need a lot of advice and if some one a video or some thing, I am all about studying before hand learning before hand so better prepared.

Thank you for any advice given.

Moving the boat yourself by canal will be good training for you.. and a good test for the boat. It would be useful to take a crew member who can operate the locks or share that work with you.

Probably best to avoid sharing a lock with a narrowboat . 

[Calranthe]

35 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Moving the boat yourself by canal will be good training for you.. and a good test for the boat. It would be useful to take a crew member who can operate the locks or share that work with you.

Probably best to avoid sharing a lock with a narrowboat . 

True but it would mean being away from wife for 3-4 days if all goes well, boat needs modification before it is safe for Paola to be on board or get on board.

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, Calranthe said:

True but it would mean being away from wife for 3-4 days if all goes well, boat needs modification before it is safe for Paola to be on board or get on board.

It is about 54 miles and would take around 27 hours - so even if you cruised dawn-to-dusk and didn't stop for the toilet, food, refuel etc it would be a couple of days.

[Calranthe]

Yes and with it being my first time on a boat like this and an untested boat I would prefer to get it to its new home and give it a good clean and check out the stern drive which if it is the same one as 15 years ago then it is an Enfield Z drive.

If we can get it down to Aston they have a workshop area I will pay to have it on a stand for a couple of days so I can clean the bottom and look for any issues before we go to the berth.

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, Calranthe said:

If we can get it down to Aston they have a workshop area I will pay to have it on a stand for a couple of days so I can clean the bottom and look for any issues before we go to the berth.

Not a car & trailer but they do move boats (based North Notts - so not that far away from Sawley)

A friend has used them twice and fully endorses them. Don't be put off by the size of the trucks - they have 7.5 tonne as well.

They may be able to lift yours aboard using a hi-ab and save any carnage cranage/ hoist fees - talk to them.

http://hutchinson-uk.co.uk/haulage-services

 

Edit to amend 'carnage'

Edited May 30, 2017 by Alan de Enfield

[MtB]

On 30/05/2017 at 08:57, Calranthe said:

True but it would mean being away from wife for 3-4 days if all goes well, boat needs modification before it is safe for Paola to be on board or get on board.

 

Have you been in touch with member here Peter X? 

Peter is an enthusiastic boater but has no boat, and likes to grab every opportunity to go boating on someone else's boat and generally be useful. He may well be delighted with the chance to move your boat, and probably spend a few hours teaching you the ropes at the same time.

I have met him and can confirm he is a jolly decent chap and I'm sure he would be delighted to hear from you. Send him a PM!

[Mike Hurley]

On 5/28/2017 at 21:39, Calranthe said:

A lot of information both from seasoned and new people we all have different points of view, as for the life jackets, they are SN165 I believe rated for anything up to storms as sea with very quick inflation and manual inflation method, when worn (have worn them around the house) they are quite thin and comfortable, maybe I do not need it but I don't swim so I will be wearing some kind of flotation device around water. Although being 6ft2 my feet should be close to touching the bottom if I do go in.

As for the travel up the canal it may not happen, if possible we will get the boat transported to Aston Marina, from what I understand we will have a nice stretch of water on the canal before meeting a lock so we can slowly get a feel for it and praps make some friends

Just need to find some one with a boat trailer that can transport a boat from Sawley to Aston

Just one thing here, you say you do not swim, i would learn quickly if i were you, it might save your life one day. As your wife has mobility issues she most probably will not be in a position to help you out if you go in the water, or worse still she goes in, a life jacket/flotation device will help but you need to be able to swim. Every boat owner will at some point take an unexpected dip. About 20+ years ago i bought my first boat, a 25 foot Seamaster, on a marina near Bristol. Needed a good polish so the first Sunday of ownership there i am polishing all the gelcoat like a madman finishing at the bow, i take a step back to admire my handywork on the front deck. At this point i realised that if i had gone for a 27 foot boat i would have had some deck left to stand on instead of thin air now under my feet, so after a backward somersault of Olympic standards i then found myself admiring the condition of the hull and the anti fouling paint from a fishes viewpoint. I popped up out of the water, but i was lucky, i can swim, you never know when it will happen.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Mike Hurley
Add on

[Tony Brooks]

I will add that I do not consider my self particularly weak but when my wife fell in I could not pull her out of the canal on my own and she can swim. This particular section had steel piling and a muddy, slippery slope at the bottom. There has been a topic on emergency ladders but we now have a folding "RIB" ladder stowed across the stern in a manner that allows someone it the water to pull it off and hang it off a stern T stud or prop it against the bank.

However you can stand up in most CANALS used by leisure boats although the mud your feet are in feels horrible. If I had been the one in the canal I would have walked to the offside bank where it is usually easier to scramble out.

[Dave123]

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 05:36, rasputin said:

As a plastic boat, I will never share a wide lock with a narrow boat again, even if they say they will tie up. 

 

Can you insist on not sharing? What about saving water, despite the recent rain we are still at risk of a drought this summer I think. I can't see this being an option somewhere like the Thames where there is a lock keeper marshalling traffic?

[Starcoaster]

You can always refuse to share-a lock, manned or otherwise-no one can force you to transit a lock after all! Although in reality this may mean surrendering the lock to let the other party go first as the path of least resistance/good manners.

Thames locks/lockies should be more than adept at managing mixed locking and keeping you and the boat safe, but yes you can always still refuse. When it comes to huge, multi-boat locks like Limehouse Basin, I am not sure what the position is if one boat refuses to share with any other boat... (I've never cruised there and I can't imagine the issue comes up much even for those that do) but I would suggest you might get turfed out of the lock in order to avoid holding everyone else up and might have to either find another route or change your mind! 

However, if you are refusing to share locks on principle rather than because of a specific current issue with the lock/other boats in question I would take that as a sign that either your boat or yourself is not equipped for such a waterway.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Starcoaster

[Peter X]

4 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Have you been in touch with member here Peter X? 

Peter is an enthusiastic boater but has no boat, and likes to grab every opportunity to go boating on someone else's boat and generally be useful. He may well be delighted with the chance to move your boat, and probably spend a few hours teaching you the ropes at the same time.

I have met him and can confirm he is a jolly decent chap and I'm sure he would be delighted to hear from you. Send him a PM!

I couldn't agree more! Lately I've been busy and only able to do short little boat trips in London. There's a yawning gap in my diary for the next seven weeks (after that I'm down for various weeks on NBT coal runs) and I'm looking for a longer trip or two to fill some of it. The OP has been in touch, watch this space. Does anyone else out there need help moving a boat a decent distance?

[Calranthe]

Great to talk to you Peter, looking forward to this it should be fun.

[LadyG]

On 2017-5-28 at 08:45, Mike the Boilerman said:

Bear in mind LadyG in handing down this advice has NO experience of narrowboating or canals. 

Well. you see Mike, the first journey has not been without difficulties, this is fairly common in boats that have been not in regular use, and sod's law dictates that when an essential trip is planned, there will one or more problems.

This is not exclusive to narrow boats or river cruisers, it happens to every type of boat, new and old, to the rich and famous , the newby or the seasoned sailor.

 

Edited June 10, 2017 by LadyG